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Espionage systems sound great in theory but in practice the AI can never loving handle it. And the AI can barely play this game as it is.
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Oct 22, 2019 19:34
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Vengarr posted:Espionage systems sound great in theory but in practice the AI can never loving handle it. This is like 75% of the mechanics in stellaris in a nutshell. Stuff that sounds good, stuff that isn't even not fun to interact with as player, but because the AI can't handle it it turns into a big nasty mess. The AI being unable to handle a mechanic should be a deal-breaker for that mechanic and should trigger an automatic "back to the drawing board" situation. Stellaris keeps piling on features when the AI can't even understand the basic 101-level mechanics of the game. Not every mechanic needs to be fully "understood" by the AI and sometimes it's fine to fudge things with a little abstraction, but when the entire game relies on just fudging the entire thing and drowning the AI in free stuff because they can't meaningfully do even the basics, maybe you've got a bad design?
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Oct 22, 2019 19:42
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Baronjutter posted:The AI being unable to handle a mechanic should be a deal-breaker for that mechanic and should trigger an automatic "back to the drawing board" situation. I think this is what Creative Assembly finally did somewhere around Shogun 2 and their games have only gotten better and better sense. imo it's probably responsible in a big for their success. A lot of the poo poo that people initially took umbrage with, infantry being able to pull siege ladders from their pockets, single-direction city sieges, etc, were done primarily because "it lets the AI not make a fool of itself in every single battle". And they end being very good changes. Meanwhile, the only way to remove all the system the AI can't handle in Stellaris would be "right click --> uninstall".
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Oct 22, 2019 19:49
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We already have passive visibility as a mechanic from Sensor Range and Listening Posts on border Starbases, generating piles of resources is giving players the thing which the AI has so that it can become an actual stumbling block, throwing that already-not-great equilibrium further off. Most of the better ideas in this discussion could probably go into a system which was less Espionage and more Intrigue. Like, a system which would give you a place to assign like an extra Governor to rack up XP so when one dies or gets elected you don't go from a level 8 to a level 1, but also where Admirals and Generals could go while fleets are parked. Passive visibility on systems where a Leader (and their presumptive staff) are actually present, insight into techs being actively researched and techs already known. Cut down on current diplomatic event spam by obfuscating that and adding diplomatic visibility as a function of trust and involvement. Flesh out leader traits a bit more, allow assignment types to weight rolls in favor of gaining traits for doing particular things like how military leaders sitting in dock can get the -upkeep trait and ones on patrol roll for Scout. It would be required to ensure that the AI knows how to farm out a few leaders and has the ability to use leader trait bonuses semi-cogently, and personally I'd very much like to see it as part of an update which adds internal politics by fleshing out and tying in both factions and sectors and adding a little life to leaders but it would be fine as a way to add a sense of interstellar community and intrigue while mechanically making leaders, particularly the ones who sit around doing nothing all the time, more interesting. Maybe more science-type vessels? Embassy Courier, Attaché Frigate, add Expeditionary or Mercenary forces for access to some war clicking without getting fully involved. Rent out your shipyard slipways to a neighbor for future favor points, a premium on completed construction cost, or maybe in exchange for their funding some extra hulls for your own fleet, of your design or theirs? A consulate system similar to MegaCorp offices which enhances Trust and has expansion options unlocked by cooperation types and trust levels which give mutual bonuses; ability for Federation members to build these freely on other members' worlds and stack bonuses for the whole force. poo poo, put Federation policies under the control of leader slots from the Envoy/Intrigue system such that someone who puts enough politics resources and effort in can pass reforms which allow things like a ban on proposing war against an empire every six months, direct control over Federation fleet design and shipbuilding, overriding objections to a war declaration or a membership invitation. That poo poo is pretty ambitious and I'll stop maundering now, I just want cool Federations >.<
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Oct 22, 2019 20:56
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Yea okay I've definitely cracked it. Resume seems to pick your oldest ironman, I have no idea why. So if I have a cloud save from 2411 and a non-cloud from 2400 it wants my latter one. Then it instantly saves over that save when you load. Chomp8645 posted:Wha???? I like being friends with people. It's like perma-alliances in Civ4.
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Oct 22, 2019 21:22
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Captain Oblivious posted:Espionage systems are literally always bad. Chomp8645 posted:Espionage systems are usually stupid bullshit in these types of games. Therefore I have no doubt they'll eventually want to add it in because, just like ship design, "our metrics say players expect it".
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Oct 22, 2019 21:27
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What if it's just assumed that you have spies and such that you don't manage, but serve as interesting story event trees? Espionage could just be a big story pack DLC.
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Oct 22, 2019 21:33
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Chomp8645 posted:I think this is what Creative Assembly finally did somewhere around Shogun 2 and their games have only gotten better and better sense. imo it's probably responsible in a big for their success. A lot of the poo poo that people initially took umbrage with, infantry being able to pull siege ladders from their pockets, single-direction city sieges, etc, were done primarily because "it lets the AI not make a fool of itself in every single battle". And they end being very good changes. In a serious reply: I would really like all the stellaris DLC before some point to be free and/or already with the game (I've even bought the plantoids one already). The issues with the AI are only compounded by the usual Paradox issue of every DLC must add depth but also be isolated creating these Blue Hole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hole) kind of depth to the game. I don't think this will happen and the closest this will likely come is Stellaris 2. Maybe the console edition will be partly an experiment in trying to fix things? I can't imagine anyone trying to do late game on a Xbox or playstation. I still think they are learning as stellaris is there first true venture outside of europe based game design.
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Oct 22, 2019 21:34
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Armadillo Tank posted:In a serious reply: I would really like all the stellaris DLC before some point to be free and/or already with the game (I've even bought the plantoids one already). The issues with the AI are only compounded by the usual Paradox issue of every DLC must add depth but also be isolated creating these Blue Hole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hole) kind of depth to the game. I don't think this will happen and the closest this will likely come is Stellaris 2. Paradox is way too greedy to ever consider this. Remember, this is the same company that increased the base prices of their games on a sale day to trick people into paying full price.
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Oct 22, 2019 22:22
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And Tyler Too! posted:Paradox is way too greedy to ever consider this. Remember, this is the same company that increased the base prices of their games on a sale day to trick people into paying full price. Yeah and the asset flip mobile gacha game only indicates this will be getting worse. Much much worse.
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Oct 22, 2019 22:34
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And Tyler Too! posted:Egalitarian - Democracy and Freedom. Specialist jobs will produce 5/10% more advanced resources and you'll gain 25/50% more faction support. Factions are a garbage game mechanic that can either shower you in increased influence gain or completely cripple influence gain, forcing you to start a new game. Flip that coin at your own risk. As someone who nearly always plays Fanatic Egalitarian, it feels like the weakest ethic right now. The actual stat bonuses it gives are fantastic, but high living standards are rarely worth it, if ever, and not using population controls or resettlement makes things 10x worse in the late game.
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Oct 23, 2019 02:57
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The main issue with espionage systems in most strategy games is they just end up being an unfun ninja tax. You just kind of randomly lose resources or have to repair something or otherwise just deal with some poo poo that doesn't really hurt you significantly but is annoying. Because it's not really that harmful, it also means that there's no real point in engaging with it to sabotage your enemies, because you won't even notice the difference and AI doesn't get annoyed.
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Oct 23, 2019 03:12
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Gyrotica posted:What if it's just assumed that you have spies and such that you don't manage, but serve as interesting story event trees? Espionage could just be a big story pack DLC. I think this would be the best way to go. Have some policy options that depend on your ethics and stuff, and just let the rest be event-driven.
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Oct 23, 2019 04:09
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My major problem with this game is resettlement. Manually resettling people to other planets is annoying, and not doing so puts you behind. I'd rather have a planetary decision to force pops to slowly move from planet A to planet B, both weakening resettlement and preventing the need for micromanagement.
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Oct 23, 2019 04:16
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Embrace a robot-only resettlent paradigm, snag alienfucking as an early ascension perk, slam biodiversity all the way up to 11. I've noticed from using the species resurrection relic that if I draw a Miner trait on the three generated pops they will crowd out other organic miners, and same for the trade value trait. Going to keep an eye on it but it looks like pops shuffle jobs to optimize at least somewhat successfully in some cases, and even without alienfucking this is a 'phile game I started on Monday which is at 2290, leaned hard into migration, refugees, and buying slaves to free into a life of working-class labor 'freedom.' It has been one of my strongest games to date, no disadvantage as near as I can tell.
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Oct 23, 2019 04:26
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I abuse the poo poo out of resettlement to get new planets out of the colony phase. A -50% growth speed penalty to pops until you've reached 10 to upgrade the shelter to an actual government building is loving stupid. I brute-force it and am all too willing to take the hit to my credits. That poo poo is glacial otherwise.
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Oct 23, 2019 04:27
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Jabarto posted:As someone who nearly always plays Fanatic Egalitarian, it feels like the weakest ethic right now. The actual stat bonuses it gives are fantastic, but high living standards are rarely worth it, if ever, and not using population controls or resettlement makes things 10x worse in the late game. The only time to ever use Fanatic Egalitarian is if you're also doing Shared Burden.
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Oct 23, 2019 04:52
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And Tyler Too! posted:There's really no wrong answer. Make your decision based around how you'd like to play. That said in my own personal opinion, playing Spiritualist is putting the game on easy-mode. You get a discount on edicts (extremely strong, but expensive buffs that last a minimum of 10 in-game years) and gain unity at an astronomic rate which results in lots of skill trees and ascension perks. The passive bonuses will skyrocket you ahead of other empires, and that's before realizing you have the option to become psychics, who simply do everything better. The one triple basic ideology I can sort of recommend for easy faction management is spiritualist/xenophobe/pacifist. You mainly just have to stockpile a bunch of energy, ban robotic labor and not get too involved with your neighbours to keep all three factions happy.
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Oct 23, 2019 05:00
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When you’re a robot all your planets are equally good and you want your colonies to hit critical growth as fast as possible, so you’ll resettle pops from the home planet onto the colonies. When you’re a hivemind all your colonies suck due to habitability problems and have good growth from the start, so you’ll resettle pops from your colonies to your home planet. The end result is that, contrary to design, robots should be played super wide (many 10+ pop planets), hive minds should be played super tall (1 developed capital planet and a bunch of 1 pop colonies). The one time I tried a resettlement-free playthrough it was super relaxing but it took until 2240 for the first colony to upgrade. Yikes. Hive minds become resettlement-free in the late game if/when they solve their habitability problems.
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Oct 23, 2019 05:04
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binge crotching posted:The only time to ever use Fanatic Egalitarian is if you're also doing Shared Burden. Which I also always do. 
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Oct 23, 2019 05:27
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The Cheshire Cat posted:The main issue with espionage systems in most strategy games is they just end up being an unfun ninja tax. You just kind of randomly lose resources or have to repair something or otherwise just deal with some poo poo that doesn't really hurt you significantly but is annoying. Because it's not really that harmful, it also means that there's no real point in engaging with it to sabotage your enemies, because you won't even notice the difference and AI doesn't get annoyed. LonsomeSon posted:We already have passive visibility as a mechanic from Sensor Range and Listening Posts on border Starbases, generating piles of resources is giving players the thing which the AI has so that it can become an actual stumbling block, throwing that already-not-great equilibrium further off. Splicer fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Oct 23, 2019 |
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Oct 23, 2019 07:17
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Hellioning posted:My major problem with this game is resettlement. Manually resettling people to other planets is annoying, and not doing so puts you behind. Not against the AI. If you're not playing against people there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever touch the resettlement screen. Or the job management screen for that matter. On the topic of espionage, Star Ruler 2's version of it is of course the best. Completely tied into the diplomacy mechanics, except for the most benign part of espionage (vision gain) which is tied into the tactical War resource instead.
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Oct 23, 2019 12:25
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DatonKallandor posted:Not against the AI. If you're not playing against people there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever touch the resettlement screen.
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Oct 23, 2019 12:40
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And Tyler Too! posted:I abuse the poo poo out of resettlement to get new planets out of the colony phase. A -50% growth speed penalty to pops until you've reached 10 to upgrade the shelter to an actual government building is loving stupid. I brute-force it and am all too willing to take the hit to my credits. That poo poo is glacial otherwise. Is there a mod that removes it?
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Oct 23, 2019 15:44
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https://twitter.com/StellarisGame/status/1187059825445916672 +50% habitability, +50% army health, + 50 year life span, -25% pop growth but more ability to gain pops from planet blockers should be interesting!
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Oct 23, 2019 19:25
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I'm predicting Lithoid auto-build AI building farms until a hotfix. But still, it's a cool feature. Hoping they end up doing the same for Plantoids (use food instead of minerals) after the big DLC.
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Oct 23, 2019 19:33
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Martout posted:https://twitter.com/StellarisGame/status/1187059825445916672 Losing 1 pop per planet every 11 years from that growth malus is pretty brutal, but there's a golden era in the midgame where the habitability bonus makes up for it before terraforming techs go online for other races. This is just screaming determined exterminators.
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Oct 23, 2019 19:48
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Blorange posted:Losing 1 pop per planet every 11 years from that growth malus is pretty brutal, but there's a golden era in the midgame where the habitability bonus makes up for it before terraforming techs go online for other races. This is just screaming Processes organic matter into minerals, please please please please please be in.
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Oct 23, 2019 19:56
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When you're processing/farming Lithoids you better get minerals out of it though.
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Oct 23, 2019 20:28
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DatonKallandor posted:When you're processing/farming Lithoids you better get minerals out of it though.
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Oct 23, 2019 20:35
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DatonKallandor posted:When you're processing/farming Lithoids you better get minerals out of it though. AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Just lol if you expect them to account for this within the first 2 months of the DLC being released. 
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Oct 23, 2019 21:51
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Blorange posted:Losing 1 pop per planet every 11 years from that growth malus is pretty brutal, but there's a golden era in the midgame where the habitability bonus makes up for it before terraforming techs go online for other races. This is just screaming determined exterminators. the twitter mentions some screenshots being from a hive mind lithoid game so devouring swarm lithoids is probably entirely possible and might be stupidly strong
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Oct 23, 2019 22:25
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I don't use resettlement much because I usually play races that don't like it - but I like when I can use it to get rid of little markers on the UI. I really, really wish that with the new pop system pops actually moved instead of just growing on new planets. It's dumb, bring back the old way.
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Oct 23, 2019 23:12
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The big mistake was making resettlement and migration totally different mechanics. If they had put a little more work into the migration system to track at least down to per-species rather than a generic slurry of "growth" they could have gotten rid of manual resettlement all together and had it all happen more fluidly in the background. Sure, let us place carrots and sticks to speed things up and have a little more control here and there, but the game should never make you manually move pops around, it should all be based on policies and fluid migration you don't need to worry about micro managing through a terrible interface.
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Oct 23, 2019 23:19
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Martout posted:the twitter mentions some screenshots being from a hive mind lithoid game so devouring swarm lithoids is probably entirely possible and might be stupidly strong
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Oct 23, 2019 23:22
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Baronjutter posted:The big mistake was making resettlement and migration totally different mechanics. If they had put a little more work into the migration system to track at least down to per-species rather than a generic slurry of "growth" they could have gotten rid of manual resettlement all together and had it all happen more fluidly in the background. Sure, let us place carrots and sticks to speed things up and have a little more control here and there, but the game should never make you manually move pops around, it should all be based on policies and fluid migration you don't need to worry about micro managing through a terrible interface. At the very least, a resettlement option to move any random unemployed pop to a planet would save some clicking and scrolling.
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Oct 23, 2019 23:25
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Imagine a simple policy or edict like "Unemployment relocation subsidies" that give a massive emigration push for unemployed pops at the cost of some energy based on the number of unemployed pops. Simple, click the edicts and after a year or so everyone's all sorted out. Also let robots move via the migration system too.
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Oct 23, 2019 23:28
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Right but for those of us that dont like playing Devouring Swarms, the Lithoids will be a no brainer to not ever use because it is nerfing yourself hard out the gate. There is no question that pop growth is the most important factor to growing big later in the game, tall or wide playstyle. That means having a species that is 25% worse at that by default is a hard no. Such a hard no I will probably not buy the Race Pack/DLC because its a waste of money if I know I'm not going to use it. Being able to get one extra free pop out of my homewolrd at game start is worthless if there will be 25% fewer of the pop growing the rest of the game. Pack it up, Lithailures!
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Oct 23, 2019 23:32
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Right but for those of us that dont like playing Devouring Swarms, the Lithoids will be a no brainer to not ever use because it is nerfing yourself hard out the gate. There is no question that pop growth is the most important factor to growing big later in the game, tall or wide playstyle. That means having a species that is 25% worse at that by default is a hard no. Such a hard no I will probably not buy the Race Pack/DLC because its a waste of money if I know I'm not going to use it. Being able to get one extra free pop out of my homewolrd at game start is worthless if there will be 25% fewer of the pop growing the rest of the game. It's a different way to play with new pictures. Who cares if it's efficient? The answer is "not many people".
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Oct 23, 2019 23:51
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Taear posted:It's a different way to play with new pictures. Yeah. Seriously, unless you're playing in a multiplayer game against other hardcore optimizers, you will still win easily even with slow breeding lithovores. The game just isn't that hard. EDIT: Also, +50% habitability and 3 extra pops to start with could actually provide more pop growth in the early game when it matters most. You could have lithovores with yellow habitability on tomb worlds without even touching the tomb world start civic, and green hab on basically everything else. That greatly increases the number of planets you can settle early on (or greatly reduces the cost of doing so if you just settle every barren rock you find), which means your absolute growth might well be higher. Zurai fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Oct 23, 2019 |
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Oct 23, 2019 23:53
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